


Your New Harper: A First-Time Owner’s Guide

by Viridian5



Category: Andromeda
Genre: Drama, Episode Related, Eureka Maru, Gen, Getting to know you, Humor, Pre-Andromeda, Slice of Ship Life, Worldbuilding, culture clash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-04-01
Updated: 2002-04-01
Packaged: 2017-10-02 07:20:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Viridian5/pseuds/Viridian5
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With Bobby gone, Beka tries to distract herself by training her ship's new acquisition.  And not in <i>that</i> way, she's firmly telling herself....</p>
            </blockquote>





	Your New Harper: A First-Time Owner’s Guide

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for "Be All My Sins Remembered" and tiny bits from "The Ties That Blind" and "The Pearls That Were His Eyes."
> 
> You can find the screen caps I used for reference at [http://viridian.shriftweb.org/andromedapics.htm#sins](viridian.shriftweb.org/andromedapics.htm#sins).

"Don't do this, Beka. We're great together," Bobby said as she turned to leave.

"Great together? You lied to me, and you did it to make me do something that jeopardized my life and everything I ever worked for. You locked me out of my own ship controls. How could I ever trust you again?" Beka answered.

"It's for the--"

"Screw 'the cause.' Maybe it makes me a less moral person than you, but it's not my cause and I don't care enough to die for it. Give it up, Bobby. You didn't convince me on the way here, and you won't convince me now." With that, Beka walked out on the love of her life and returned to her ship. Lifting off, she left Cascada and Bobby behind and refused to think or feel anything about it.

She felt nothing. She clenched her fingers on the controls because lift-off around here was tricky.

  


* * *

Eventually she turned on the autopilot and left the cockpit to deal with the other legacy of Bobby's lies. The Earth kid had gone into hiding not long after they'd blown their Nietzschean pursuit to hell. Not that she blamed him, since Bobby had been in an understandably foul mood and probably inclined to blame the person who'd let her know that their shipment of "computers" actually contained missiles, explaining why the Nietzscheans had wanted them dead. And Bobby had threatened him a few times before that.

For somebody who'd been so cocky and in-your-face previously, Harper had disappeared for the last ten hours, his presence marked only by a few bits of things missing from the pantry, things a kid might think she wouldn't miss, but she stocked that pantry herself and knew everything in it. At least he hadn't gnawed on the wire casings for food.

With a smirk, she called, "Hooper?"

"That's 'Harper,'" one of the top bunks said. His head, crowned with that frightening, greasily spiked hair, poked out and regarded her with dark, wary eyes. She'd probably have to delouse the bunk.

"Bobby's gone."

"Finally." Then his eyes took on a warier look.

"I'm not going to punish you for anything. I said I'd give you a place here if you followed my orders. I meant it."

He leapt down to stand in front of her, making one of the least prepossessing sights she'd ever seen when looking at a new crewmember. Malnourished, filthy, full of attitude, aromatic, he'd take a while to groom and train. It looked like only the dirt held his ratty, punkish clothing together. About what you'd expect from someone who came from hellhole Earth, home of oppressive Nietzschean overlords, rampaging Magog, and downtrodden human victims. It made her wonder how Harper would deal with Rev once he came back from his retreat. Yet Harper had an aptitude for fixing things that could be useful, and he seemed smart, though uneducated.

He looked really young, as young as 12 at times. Beka didn't know if she could trust him to give his true age, so she didn't ask, but she suspected him to be in his late teens. She didn't have the patience to deal with childishness, but he'd learn that soon enough.

This wouldn't be Bobby redux. As much as she'd loved him and how protective of her he could be, sometimes he'd stifled her and commanded her around. Sometimes she'd felt like property. This time she was the one with all the power, and it felt good. This was her ship, her game, and Harper had to keep her pleased.

Harper had fought Bobby for her after she'd made it the condition of his stay on the Maru even though Bobby scared him. He must want to stay off Earth very badly, and she sure as hell couldn't blame him for that. She could use that....

"I am your captain," Beka said. "You can call me 'Beka' or 'Captain Valentine.' You follow my orders or I dump you. Piss me off badly enough, I'll dump you back on Earth. I know you have a smart mouth, and that's fine with me up to a point since I have a smart mouth too. I'll let you know whenever you go too far with it, and you will then stop mouthing off. Am I clear?"

Looking wary, nervous, and a bit resentful, he said, "As crystal."

"Good." Since she already had him annoyed, she might as well go on to the next thing. "Now you're going to clean up."

He grinned. "Cool."

Cool? He should have been offended, he should have.... "You've been checking out the ship."

"Well, yeah, I'm crew now, right? And I can fix things for you better if I know where stuff is. I mean, I couldn't jettison the damn missiles because I couldn't find the release, and I _hated_ that. Nah, shower would be great. Ten minutes of hot water is more hot water than I ever got before." Damn, he had a bizarre, grating accent, with those nasal "A"s.

His gung ho attitude irritated her for some reason, so she felt the need to strike back. "Strip."

He went still. "What?"

"I want to see what you're bringing to my ship. Strip."

He took a deep breath and looked somewhat... beaten. Resigned. "Okay." He started to take off his battered leather jacket.

"Take everything out of the pockets first."

"Hunh? You want to rob me, then--" Harper abruptly shut up.

Damn, it did sound like she wanted to take advantage of him, didn't it? "I don't want your ass; I just want to see what you brought with you so I don't get any surprises later on." She had to cough back a laugh at the mingled relief and offense on his face. "You're cute, but you're not my type."

"Yeah, I've seen your type," he muttered.

She'd let him get away with that. After all, he was doing as she'd commanded, even if he was letting her know how pissed off it made him. Better she know it as it happened anyway than get hit by a surprise mutiny later.

It amazed her what came out of that jacket. Gun clips, food, coins, various small parts of things, metal that might be earrings or might be machine parts, rocks, keys, and old, jury-rigged tools. If Bobby had such a hard-on for helping oppressed aborigines, maybe he should take up a collection for Earth. She wouldn't think about Bobby. Harper pulled two shirts--each as stained, frayed, and ragged as the one he wore--and underwear out of the lining. She wondered about the rabbit's foot dangling from his jacket but didn't ask.

"Go on," she said.

Sighing, Harper pulled off his boots, revealing more tools and coins, as well as two sharp, thin slices of metal that could be knives. His toes poked through holes in the threadbare socks. He had things hidden in the top of his socks too. He pulled more tidbits out of the pockets of his pants, then took his shirt off, revealing a drab tank top and surprisingly muscular arms nearly as pale as his now bare feet.

Harper looked up at her then, and she couldn't let this go any further. "Enough. That's fine." She may have started this out of spite, but she'd injured herself with it, made herself feel evil and dirty. This small pile of junk and ragged clothing, what he still had on, his gun, and whatever dignity he could claim were all he had. Taking out her Bobby anger on Harper felt petty. "You could hand me the rest over the shower door if you'd like."

Harper didn't look comforted in the least. "Why would I hand you my clothing?"

"You can't wash up, then put on the same dirty clothing. It's going through the washer." And she'd wrap it up in something expendable while wearing gloves to carry it there. She'd have some delousing stuff in the shower water too. Just to be safe. "From my tastes," and Bobby's, "you can tell that the Maru has a leather cleaner too."

"Uh. I don't think my clothes would survive washing."

"There's no way you're walking around here smelling the way these clothes do."

"There's no way I'm walking around the ship naked. Since I'm not your type, you probably don't want that either."

To Beka's relief, her brain refused to provide a mental picture. "I have some clothing left over from old crewmembers, and I'll bring them out as backup."

A ghost of a cocky grin lit across Harper's face. "Wanna bet on whether my clothes will disintegrate?"

The grin made her feel better, even while his certainty made her sigh. "No." She better find those leave-behinds.

The grin widened, making him look far more appealing. "Spoilsport."

"Shower."

"Yes, Mom."

  


* * *

As he'd predicted, almost everything had fallen apart, and she would be pulling frayed threads out of the washer for some time to come. All the shirts' holes now gaped so wide that they'd become useless. The pants had given out at the seams. She couldn't even find the remains of the socks and underwear. Only his olive tank top had survived the washing. At least his jacket and boots still existed, though they didn't look healthy by any means. She tied the rabbit's foot back onto his jacket, trying not to feel so much like an anthropologist studying some bizarre primitive.

A yelp had let her know that Harper had tested the ten-minute limit on the hot water and discovered for himself that the heat cut off at exactly ten minutes. She'd left him alone with the towels while she went looking for something else to dress him in. Short, skinny kid, so he'd be forced to roll up the cuffs on everything and wear a belt. He'd have to do without underwear for a while, though she could give him socks.

"Are you decent?" she yelled at the door.

"As much as I ever get," he yelled back.

How could he look even younger without all the grime on his skin? That bruise/gash on his forehead looked worse without all the camouflaging dirt. And his hair, now drying.... "What do you cut your hair with, a wire trimmer?"

Without the disguising greasy spikes, it looked dark blond and raggedly chopped, with not a single strand seeming to be the same length as any other. Some hanks of it fell into his eyes. He kept shoving and combing it away with the fingers of his right hand. It looked like he'd even cleaned under his nails. He had to have done it with cold water. In fact, for his skin to be as clean-scrubbed as it was now, he must have done a lot of his washing up with cold water.

"More important question is, what am I gonna use to spike it with?" he asked. Wrapped in her towels, he had only his head, hands, wrists, ankles, and feet showing.

"You are _not_ doing that to your hair again."

"What happened to freedom of expression?"

"One, this ship is a dictatorship. Two, the only thing your hair told me was that you needed to be dunked into a vat of water and kept under the surface until you came up clean."

He pouted, which made him look eight. "If I could make spikes that left my hair looking clean, would that be okay for your dictatorness?"

"I want final approval."

"On my frigging hair?" He sighed. She tossed him the clothes she'd found, his jacket, and his tank top, then set down the boots. He smirked. "Told ya. Now, unless you want a free show...."

"Going."

"No underwear?" he yelled through the door after her.

"No. And I'm not making a statement with that either."

He snorted.

The clothing made it worse, made him look even younger and cuter in a baby animal way. She better understood his former punk look now. Even aside from how everything he had to choose from must have looked tattered anyway, it gave him more of a prickly air. Dressed in a faded navy blue sweater and dark pants with the cuffs on each rolled up enough to accommodate him, his clean hair flopping into his face as he bent to fasten his boots, he looked... cuddly. She didn't have a maternal instinct in her whole body, but right now she wanted to feed him and trim his hair. At least he'd retained that weird earring, the one that might have been a machine part once. She could see that and remember the ratty punk.

Though food sounded like a good idea. "You hungry?" she asked. When Harper gave her a completely incredulous look as an answer, she said, "Okay, dumb question. Follow me."

He shoveled his food into his mouth at high speed until he noticed her staring at him, at which point he slowed down, but she could see the strain on him. Kid had to be battling years of survival instincts.

"Nobody's going to take it away from you, and we rarely go hungry," Beka said.

"'We'? Is it you and me or you, me, and other people we're talking about?"

Rev had to be brought up sometime; better to get it out of the way early. "I have one other crewmember at the moment. He's a Wayist currently on retreat. You'll meet him in about a week." Beka let out a deep breath, accustomed to several reactions to what she would say next. "He's a Magog. I thought you should know."

Going impossibly paler, Harper almost choked on his food. Wide-eyed, he stared at her, then started to laugh nervously, thus combining reactions #2, #4, and #5. "You're funny, boss." He nearly squeaked.

"Yeah, I am, but I'm not joking right now."

Harper looked almost nauseous. "How the--"

"He's not like other Magog. He's a Wayist; he reveres life. He wouldn't hurt you or anyone. I know that may be hard for you to believe, but I've crewed with him for two years, and he's a valued friend. If you can't deal with him, _you'll_ have to go."

"Oh," he said softly. "Well. I'm... cool. With that. I mean, with staying. With the Magog." He put his bravado back on like a protective suit. "But if he starts trouble with me--"

"If he starts trouble with you for real, you have every right to defend yourself and bring it to my attention. But he won't."

Sounding serious and earnest, he said, "I'm trusting you, Beka."

"I know."

Harper looked down at his food like he didn't want it anymore, then started to mechanically eat again. Survival instincts. Finally he asked, "Do you have schematics for the Maru? I wanna study up."

Sounded like a great idea. "Yeah. Hold on."

His eyes lit up as she handed him the flexi. "Aw, yeah." He manipulated the controls and screens one-handed while he ate with the other. At least it slowed him down.

"Why is this set up like this?" he asked as he pointed at a chosen area.

Oh. God. "That's for propulsion." They were doomed.

He had an almost feline expression of disgust on his face. "And two plus two equals four. Duh, boss. I mean, why was it set up this way? The valves are more likely to clog in this design."

Well.

She sat next to him so she could see the schematic too, and they started a round of serious mech talk. Harper may not have always known the right words, but he had most of the principles nailed as well as a talent for seeing possible improvements to the system just from coming at the problem from a different direction, making him much smarter and more learned than she'd realized. With the right training, he'd be a force to reckon with in engineering. And he loved this stuff; it was obvious from the light in his eyes and the speed of his words. To her surprise, Beka enjoyed herself and felt an odd shiver of déjà vu.

Later that night, lying in her bunk, she realized why, and felt a deep ache in her chest. Talking shop with Harper like that had reminded her of doing the same with her father while he'd been training her to service the Maru, when he'd still been at his best. Harper's self-taught skills, inventiveness, enthusiasm, and sense of humor reminded her of her dad's at times.

She could choose to see that as a debit or an asset.

She suddenly heard a muffled moan from the bunk above and sighed. As much as she had no urge to hear Harper's dreams, open quarters left no choice. If he was a teenager like she figured, he'd be doing this once in a while, so she better get used to it

But if the bunk started to rock, she'd be going out to the kitchen, thanks.

But the next moan really didn't sound right for that. Scared, panicked moan, not a good time moan.

Beka clipped a small light to her shirt near its neck and climbed up to see Harper tossing, gasping, and sweating in his sleep with his teeth clenched in his pillow to muffle the sounds of his cries. Survival instincts. He'd made a kind of nest of clothing and sheets.... She shook his shoulder hard and leaned way back as he tried to punch her. His eyes opened at the light and regarded her groggily.

"Ow," he muttered as he levered himself up a bit and rubbed his eyes one-handed, mussing his hair further. "Fucking bright-- Who are you?"

"Your boss sleeping in the bunk below you. At least I was." But she made her voice sound as gentle as she could.

Beka watched as his brain came back from whatever hell he'd been trapped in. "Oh. Shit. Sorry I woke you up, Beka." Once his obvious embarrassment faded a little, he said, "You know, while you're up here...." But it sounded like his protective bravado, not serious.

"Dream on, Seamus."

"With you here, boss, I'm sure they'd all be sweet dreams."

She hit him with his own pillow.

  


* * *

During repair work Harper showed his talent for fixing, cannibalizing, and recycling. He could make a part do just about anything, no matter what it had actually been designed for. Made sense, considering his background. It thrilled her that she didn't have to fix all of the Maru's battle damage on her own. Once she got her next shipment order, she'd have to think about what to start paying him, since as a weight-pulling crewmember, an asset to her operations, he sure as hell deserved a cut above working for room and board.

And Bobby had intended to use only the kid's knowledge of the Dragan installation and then leave him on Earth, promises be damned. Would Bobby have even realized that Harper could be useful for anything else? She doubted it, since Bobby could be hard to convince of anything once he had his mind made up. "I travel light," he'd said, as if it had been his decision alone to make.

Sometimes she didn't miss Bobby at all.

  


* * *

"Harper, I don't want you keeping food in your bunk. That's what the kitchen is for."

He sighed. "I don't get what the problem is. And what are you doing in my bunk anyway?"

"My ship, remember? Besides, something up there was starting to turn. I could smell it."

The food stocks could last almost forever as long as you didn't add moisture to prepare them for eating. Once you did that, they went bad pretty quickly. Harper always ended up making more than he ate, and she didn't know if he did it from overestimating his appetite or on purpose to hide for later.

"It's still good."

Once in a while Beka would fall right into the chasm that separated them. It stunned her into silence for a moment, but only for a moment. "No crewmember of mine will be eating rotting food while I have perfectly good stuff around, and no crewmember of mine will be squirreling food away in his bunk or pockets. It's like you don't trust me to feed you, and I hate that."

"It's not that. I graze, nibble nibble, all day long. You've seen me."

"Okay, that explains what you put in your pockets, and I don't mind that. Hiding food and letting it go bad in your bunk I do mind."

"You can't expect me to change almost 20 years of habit after a few days!" The words almost exploded with annoyance.

Information. Actual information. "Almost 20 years?"

Harper looked even more uncomfortable. "More or less."

"More or less what?"

"More or less a year, okay?"

Making him 19, 20, or 21. More or less. Small and young looking for his age--any of the three of them--but it wasn't like anyone had ever fed him right before her.

"Trust me to provide for you, Harper."

"Sure, boss. You can bring home the bacon _and_ fry it up in a pan."

It _sounded_ like they both spoke Common, but sometimes it really didn't seem that way. "What the hell do-- Never mind. Don't want to know. If I keep asking what the hell you're talking about, I'd never get anything else done. I'll stop expecting you to change overnight."

"That's great, because it's not gonna happen." He looked bizarrely cute in his belligerence, his pointy chin seeming pointier. It seemed to make his crazy hair stand up more too.

Unable to resist, Beka ruffled it, to Harper's annoyance. It felt soft and fine under her fingers.

He snarled at her, which only made him look cuter. "And you wonder why I spike my hair. I swear, first place we go to, I'm getting something for it, even if I have to use motor oil."

She didn't ask how he'd pay for it without any galactic currency, because she knew he'd use a five-finger discount, which she didn't mind as long as he didn't get caught, but she had to burst his bubble anyway. "The first place we're going to is a Wayist monastery."

"I'll find something there, you wait and see."

Sometimes Beka really felt like she needed a leash for him. And a whip and a chair as training aids.

  


* * *

It didn't take Beka long to get used to having Harper around, not very surprising considering all the time they spent side by side fixing the Maru. She even enjoyed it, most of the time, particularly the jokes and acrobatics.

His enthusiasm could be contagious, though she couldn't duplicate his energy, the way he never walked when he could run. He climbed, swung, crawled, and slid through her ship, never going around something he could leap over or slip under. Sometimes he even hung from things. Maybe someday that would become usual to her instead of entertaining, but for now it still made her smile. And that one time when he'd fallen off while walking atop a railing, his "I _meant_ to do that" expression had been so funny that she'd laughed until she almost passed out and he'd sulked for hours.

She'd gotten used to his presence in the bunk above hers as he slept or read manuals or schematics in the nest of clothing and sheets he'd made. He had a habit of dangling over the edge to talk to her. It no longer surprised her when she gained a curious, hungry, blond shadow as she heated food for herself. He almost always had some wild new idea when they started talking about the Maru and possible improvements and changes they could make to it. She ruffled his hair partly because it begged for it but also to get that aggrieved, drawn-out whine of "Beka!" while he had this look on his face that suggested that he actually liked it but didn't think he _should_ like it. Besides, she was doing him a favor, since his hair kept falling into his eyes.

  


* * *

Beka should have known that the hair ruffling and leash thoughts would lead to trouble, though perhaps it'd be more accurate to say that they were symptoms of trouble. She'd gotten used to having a live-in lover in Bobby, and now that she'd given him the boot she felt... frustrated. Yeah, she had her hands, toys, and ten minutes of hot water in the shower, but none of that substituted for hot flesh, actual dick.

Harper was starting to look good to her, attractive for his energy, the flexibility he casually showed in his habit of sliding under and vaulting over railings, the certainty in his clever hands. She remembered that all that rolled-up, overlarge clothing hid a nice set of arms, and she wanted to find out how his choppy hair would feel against the insides of her thighs. Who cared that he wasn't her type or that he sometimes reminded her of her dad or that he looked way too young? Desperation had so set in that even feeling perverted over being attracted to someone who looked like a child only made her hornier.

For all Beka knew, Earth kids faced sexual initiation at the age of 11 and shamelessly went at in front of a room full of strangers.

Harper hadn't been subtle about his attraction to her, so it sure as hell wouldn't be rape if she decided to get some action. If she told him to take off his clothes and come here, it'd probably take him three seconds to be ready.

Which led her right into the cons. She'd told him that her word was law and she'd dump him for disobedience. If she told him she wanted sex, would he figure that was one of the conditions of his stay on the Maru? The thought of him feeling like he had to be her whore, fucking her out of a sense of duty, turned her stomach. She couldn't help wondering if "following orders" would also translate to him doing anything she told him to do, no matter how he felt about it. As for "what he felt about it," she got the feeling that sex would make this kid latch on, when all she wanted from him was simple fucking. She _liked_ him, but she didn't see him becoming the love of her life.

So far he'd proved himself to be a decent employee, good company, and the beginnings of a good friend. She didn't want to make him her whore or her pet.

But he had to stop crowding her so much, leaning into her personal space. One of these days she was going to just _grab_ him and _use_ him and--

She needed to get a hook-up posthaste. Next port of call. Then she remembered that the next port of call was the monastery.

Okay, _next_ next port of call.

"What's wrong, boss?" Harper asked as he put his tools down and turned to face her.

She couldn't even pin the blame for this on him, not when he had everything covered except for his hands and his head. Hell, the sweaters and shirts she'd given him were long enough to totally cover his ass, rendering him a shapeless lump. Well, a shapeless lump with hands and a head.

"Nothing," she muttered.

"Whoo! Redheaded temper. Sorry."

"Really?" She made her nanobots turn her hair blonde.

Harper's face lit up, incredible to see. "That is so _fucking_ cool. Nanotech?"

Seeing him like that, she couldn't stay pissed off. "Yeah. My dad's work. Watch this." She turned her hair plaid: red and black and green, shot through horizontally with yellow in places.

Harper's mouth dropped open in his awe and appreciation. "Go, Beka's dad!" He came in close to her hair to examine it, even though he had no hope in hell of actually seeing the nanobots and had to know it.

Clean, he smelled good, like the Maru's soap and healthy young man. He was too close.... Beka stiffened. "Harper," she snapped, annoyed.

Harper pulled away immediately, with this expression on his face like she'd smacked him. "Dumb me. I don't have the instruments to actually see them. Sorry."

"It's not--"

"Nah, it's fine. I'll... go do something." He stood up and ran off.

_Next_ next port of call, definitely. Dammit, Bobby had a lot to pay for. Beka had to fix things with Harper, but she better take care of herself first if she didn't want her kind-of apology to turn into a debauch.

Fifteen minutes later a less horny Beka found Harper in the engine room, where he seemed to be matching the details of the schematic to the real-world counterpart. He glanced at her warily, then turned back to the AP tanks. "Hey, Beka."

"Sorry about that. It's not you. I'm just in a mood."

"Sure." He sounded utterly blank and colorless.

Damn. Time for her peace offering. "I was thinking that maybe the work would go faster if we had some music. I have one hell of a collection."

"Yeah?" A bit of interest leaked into his voice.

She handed her box over. "You get to choose. Take a look."

His agile fingers-- Stop it, Beka --skimmed across her disks. "Dunno, dunno, never heard.... Wait, you have the Pogues _and_ the Clash? Hot damn. Where did you get this stuff?"

"Liberated it."

His grin widened. "You have good taste in music, boss."

"I know."

"If you weren't already my new favorite person, this would nail it for ya."

It took her aback. He'd probably say anything to keep a place for himself on her ship-- But no, he seemed totally genuine as he beamed. His eyes and voice all said so, unless he was one hell of an actor.

She'd been worried about sex inspiring the kid latch on? It sounded like he'd already firmly latched. It made her nervous and gave her a warm feeling all at once.

Watching him bop around to and sometimes sing into his tools for _London Calling_ as he made adjustments to the tanks provided her with a lot of entertainment and nearly made it all worth it, though.

  


* * *

"Did you deliberately pick the most worn out clothing for this?" Beka asked as they waited at the monastery door. She'd asked this question more subtly a few times since leaving the Maru.

Harper rocked from side to side, dressed in leave-behind clothing so shapeless and worn that she felt only a tiny shiver of horniness looking at him. He looked about ten years old. "Yeah."

She hadn't expected that answer. "Yeah?"

"From my experience of priests, some of them give to the needy." Harper gave her his most ingratiating smile. "I want to make sure they know I'm needy."

Beka shook her head. "I don't want them to think I can't take care of my own."

Harper's smile widened, but he said nothing. Wisely, since she might have snapped at him if he pressed her about the "my own" thing. They'd spent less than a week together, and he'd already grown on her that much, not unlike mold.

"Aren't you cold?" she asked. The monastery was cold stone downplanet, very old school, chilly and damp. She didn't understand why priests wouldn't want something warm and comfortable like sane people would.

"Wimp." It just made Harper more hyper, impossibly enough, weirdly more alive. His eyes kept flicking around, his nostrils flaring, but he seemed to like it. She guessed it made sense, seeing as how he'd lived on a planet all his life.

Harper went motionless and stiff as Rev approached with another priest. She'd called ahead to let Rev know he should be especially gentle since her newest recruit came from Earth, but Rev had a wicked sense of humor and a bad tendency to get touchy feely that not even a few panicked mobs had cured him of. People tended to get that way about Magog coming close to them, and no wonder.

Rev stopped just out of his arms' reach and bowed to them. "Beka, Master Harper. Greetings."

"Hi," Harper said. "You'll understand if I don't offer to shake your hand."

Beka's mouth quirked. _She_ never shook Rev's hand, not with those long, curling claws he had. Harper's quiet--for him--show of spirit reassured her a little.

"You look good, Rev," she said. As good as a hairy, frightening Magog could look.

"I'm sorry that Bobby didn't work out," Rev answered.

"No, you're not." Bobby had never liked Rev, and the feeling had been mutual, as much as the Wayist had tried to deny that he could dislike anyone. He told her that he merely hoped he could help Bobby find the right path.

Bobby hated that.

Bobby, Bobby, Bobby. Beka hadn't realized how much distraction dealing with Harper had given her from thinking about Bobby until coming for Rev had brought it back.

"I was trying to be polite," Rev said.

Harper smiled. If he bonded with Rev through hatred of Bobby, at least he bonded. She could deal with it.

The other priest kept eyeing Harper. "We heard of your situation and have some clothing we could give to your new crewmember. Our greater variety might serve him better."

Harper had called it. Beka could feel him fighting down the urge to gloat. "Thank you for your generosity," she said. "All of my prior crewmembers were much taller."

"Hey!" Harper protested. But he recovered fast. "What am I allowed to choose?"

"Excuse me?" the priest asked.

"You're not going to let me take everything you have. I just wanna know what the limit is."

"You can see what we have, and we'll decide from there."

"That's a mistake," Beka said.

As soon as the priest pointed out the box to Harper, Harper was in it, quickly sorting the items into piles, occasionally muttering things like "too yellow" or "too frayed" or "this is workable." Beka had seen machines sort slower.

"You got a needle and thread?" Harper asked. "I can fix stuff."

"You sew?" Beka asked.

"I could have more holes during the winter, or I could sew. Not that I can make myself stuff, but I can mend. Main trouble was finding good thread. Not much I can do with sweaters, though."

"We have thread and needles," the priests said.

Harper put on his best ingratiating smile. "Cool. So, how much can I take with me, padre?"

  


* * *

Beka left Harper to start chopping down and fixing his five shirts, three pairs of pants, and assorted underwear she didn't want to know the details of. It gave her the space to talk to the head of the order before taking her crew out.

"We have a shipment of medicines that perhaps you could take to Borealis," the abbot said.

"I can't do it for free. I lost a shipment and got shot up recently," Beka answered. Hey, she had a business to run.

"We will pay. Though we do expect a discount."

Rev murmured to her, "If not for this, you will not make any profit here at all. Better to be charitable."

"Whose side are you on?" she muttered back.

"The right one."

"Yeah, Rev." Oh, whatever. "Sure, padre."

The abbot smiled. "Excellent. We'll pay some of it now, and the rest will come to you from the recipient when you deliver."

"You're doing good work, Beka," Rev said. He smiled at her raised eyebrows. Rev or no, the sight of a smiling Magog still sent a shiver down her spine.

  


* * *

When Harper walked into the Maru's kitchen the next morning, Beka did a double take. "Son of a bitch," she said.

Harper's grin defined "smug." "Told ya. It looks like clean hair though, so I can do this, just like you said I could. Be bad training if you changed your mind now."

The newer, better-fitted clothing made a difference, made him look closer to his age, but what had he done to his hair? It looked like... then Beka's memory kicked in to tell her what it looked like. She'd seen footage of porcupines once somewhere, and Harper's blond hair had been spiked into something resembling the long quills on that animal. She remembered that porcupines raised their quills as a defense against predators. Appropriate, since it showed the prickly side of Harper's nature. Right now, his didn't stand straight up.

"It was a monastery!" she protested. "How did you find something to do... _that_ to your hair with?"

He grinned and sat next to her. "I'll never tell."

Curious, unable to help herself, she reached out to touch them, and they felt stiff and slightly sticky under her fingers. She smirked as he whined, "Beka!" dragging her name out to at least five syllables. She liked the quills better than the greasy, dirty looking spikes he'd had before, but she missed the soft, more touchable, freed hair he'd done under duress for the last week.

She better approve the quills, then.

Harper sighed. "Is there anything I can do to make you stop ruffling my hair?"

"Shave it off?" Beka suggested cheerfully.

"Then you'd be stroking the fuzz." He shivered at that.

Imagining how it would feel against her fingertips, she did too. "Don't worry. You're safe from me. I just wanted to know what your quills felt like. And I told you I had final approval on how you could express yourself through your poor, abused hair."

"So, Your Dictatorhood?"

"It's... all right. Interesting, I guess. I think you're nuts, but go with it."

"Wait till you see what I do with it tomorrow."

It wasn't like she hadn't known that he was a lunatic.

The next day his hair stood stiffly straight up instead, but it still looked clean. And on principle she ruffled it once, or at least tried to, over his protests. It barely moved. From then on, his daily topiary experiments with his hair became one of the highlights of a dull trip. Along with his friendly offers to let Rev try his styling gunk.

She kind of hoped that Rev would take him up on it someday, since she wanted to find out if reality could exceed the mental images she kept getting.

  


* * *

A very, very dull trip. The trip to Borealis bored the three of them nearly to tears, but at this point a little boredom made a vast improvement over the Earth/Cascada debacle. Once they arrived, their recipient paid very well, leading to Rev waxing rhapsodic on the benefits of doing good work and Beka telling him to put a sock in it, while Harper watched with amusement.

Since Harper could still use a few things, Beka sent him out with some credit chits. Payment, not a loan. His eyes had sparkled at her right before he flew off. She didn't know whether to worry about Harper or Borealis, but she couldn't keep him on a leash, and she had to stop thinking about putting a leash on him. Really. She didn't want those kinds of images in her head.

Which reminded her of something _she_ had to do. One tall, dark-haired muscle man later, Beka felt much better and less inclined to dwell on things she didn't really _want_ to do with Harper.

Of course, that had taken several hours, and since Harper hadn't returned yet Beka went out looking for him. One advantage of Harper looking the way he did was that she could ask people the whereabouts of a short, fidgety, blond boy with crazy hair and not worry that they'd put her on the trail of the wrong short, fidgety, blond boy with crazy hair. People tended to remember him too.

Their directions led her to a dark alley that made her worry. As she walked down it, she heard sounds and almost walked in on something that made her sigh. Well, she knew he was older than he looked and at least now she didn't want to make it a threesome.

The woman pinning Harper to the wall and kissing his neck reached her hand down to his belt but not for the right reasons. Damn it. Beka was about to shout a warning, but Harper smacked the woman's hand away. "I'm not that hard-up, sister," he gasped.

She made a motion like she'd hit him, but he suddenly had one of his thin, sharp slices of metal near her face. "That's not a good idea either," he said. She spat at him and flounced away. He sighed.

Beka cleared her throat, making Harper jump. "Dammit," he snarled, then sighed again, embarrassment obvious in his body language. "I guess she thought I looked like easy prey." He looked hurt.

Beka decided to leave it alone, ignore it to help him save face. "Hey, I wanted to go shopping for parts for the Maru with this new cash we have. Since you're our mechanic...."

It cheered Harper up a bit. Or at least he put on a cheered up face to make _her_ feel better. "It'll be interesting buying that stuff for once."

"As opposed to stealing it?"

"_Liberating_ it, Beka. The Ubers' parts wanted to be _free_."

  


* * *

To Beka's amusement, Harper and Rev were discussing religion. Harper had a major distrust of Wayism that seemed to have stemmed directly from having heard Wayists preach on Earth. "They'd tell us that the Divine loves us best during the times when we were broken and downtrodden, like people should _aspire_ to be as badly off as we were. My thought is, anything that doesn't like me as much when I'm riding high can piss off, Divine or not."

"That's not what they meant."

Harper swung his legs over the edge of his bunk and kept swinging them jauntily. "Then explain it to me, Rev. Explain it to me in a way that makes it out to be something other than the idea that it's some 'blessed are the meek; don't rise up against your Nietzschean oppressors because you're holier with their boots on your neck' shit."

"That is not at all what they meant."

"I'm open-minded. Run it down for me so it isn't like that."

"Hmm."

"See?"

"Give me a moment."

Harper had his "going in for the kill" smile on, all feral. "If that's not what it means, the explanation should be right there. Why isn't it?"

"It's a good thing I like you."

"Yeah, yeah. Which means that I win, right?" Harper did a little bopping dance in his bunk as he sat and sang, "I got you, I _got_ you...."

Rev snarled. Harper just grinned deeper. Yet Rev didn't _really_ seem to mind. It relieved Beka that they got on so well, especially since Harper had probably personally seen Magog atrocities that--

Well, that she didn't want to think about.

Rev sighed. "I have answers--"

"Suuuuuuure, you do."

"--but I know that you will tear them apart. I shall think on this further and come up with an answer that will disarm even your cynicism."

"Dream on. My cynicism needs super-strong opiates to knock it out."

Beka shook her head and smiled.

  


* * *

"Bastard," Beka muttered. She hated being cheated and having no recourse. "What are you so cheerful about?" she asked Harper.

"I think he'll pay the rest of what he owes us," Harper answered, bouncing, giving one pretty stand vendor an appreciative look.

"And why would he do that?"

Harper suddenly had a remote control spinning in his hand. "Because I disabled all the loading pins once he paid us a mere fraction of what he promised."

"You're kidding me."

"From the beginning you said you didn't trust him, so I put together--"

"A Plan B." It amazed Beka that her smile didn't devour her face.

She loved this kid.

"He should figure it out soon."

"I'm glad you're on my side." Someone in the crowd suddenly bumped her hard and ran off. "Oh--"

"On it." Harper ran off to the side while she barreled after the thief on a direct route. She could see Harper's progress from the parting and swearing of bystanders. His diminutive size and less than fearsome appearance must have led to years of him finding creative ways to clear traffic from his path. She had her own version, and it mainly involved flying fists and elbows.

Slipping through the crowd like a hot knife through lukewarm butter, the thief kept looking back at her with a smirk on his pointy face. His face wouldn't look so pointy once she got done with it. Suddenly he grunted out in a rush, _folded_, and just about flipped before he hit the floor hard face-first. Harper pounced down and rifled the guy's pockets and bags.

"What did you hit him with?" Beka whispered when she crouched beside him.

If Harper's big smile had been any more elaborately innocent, she would have been forced to smack him before she succumbed to sugar shock. Eyes sparking with something feral, he whispered back, "Big heavy pipe I found lying around. Might have cracked some of his ribs, but what could I do when he ran right into me?"

"Good work, Harper. All the way around."

With the crowd being deliberately blind, just as they'd been when _her_ credits had been lifted, Harper and Beka took advantage of the opportunity to divest the thief of all of his ill-gotten gains from the day. Beka gave Harper half of all the money that didn't belong to her. Hey, he'd worked for it. They made a tidy profit.

Her day was looking up.

It really looked up when they reached the Maru and Rev told them that their cheating employer had called and seen the error of his ways. If they fixed the shipment, he'd be more than happy to pay. Pretty please come back? It made Beka smile.

"Our fortunes have improved. What happened?" Rev asked.

"Divine intervention," Beka answered cheerfully.

Rev got it. "Ah, yes. The Divine loves to help those who help themselves."

"Well, we got the 'helping ourselves' bit _down_," Harper said.

  


* * *

Beka couldn't believe it. They'd had a smooth, quiet run, no one shooting at them or trying to cheat them, with another job lined up almost immediately... and Harper had disappeared for a night and half a day after she'd given him permission to go out for R&amp;R. She'd checked every bar on Albuquerque Drift, fending off various amorous idiots who didn't understand the meaning of "no" in the process, with no luck.

She'd strangle him when she found him. Maybe hug him and strangle him. At the same time. She was worried _sick_.

"We have news on Master Harper," Rev said as she entered the Maru's cockpit.

"Thank you. Okay, what trouble is he in?"

"Some concerned bar patrons left him at a clinic."

"What?" Harper had been coughing on and off for days but sworn he was okay. She'd strangle him. "Okay, what does he have?"

"No one knows. The clinic won't treat him. He has no documentation, no ID, and no money."

Of course he had no documentation or ID, fresh off Earth as he was. "He went out with money, at least enough for a down payment on clinic work."

"He either spent it already, was rolled by a thief, or doesn't trust the doctors."

"Okay, so they didn't admit him. We'll just go and get him."

Rev sighed. "It's not that simple."

"Of course it's not."

"Whatever he has is bad enough that they won't allow him back out into the population."

Great. "They just won't give him anything to make him better."

"They wouldn't surrender him to me either, saying when I called them that even though he didn't have the money for treatment he didn't deserve to be turned over to a Magog."

At least they had their hearts in the right place in one instance. They were misguided as _hell_, but.... "I'm sorry, Rev. Would they hand him over to family?"

"Perhaps. Especially if his family arrived with money."

Beka turned her hair the precise shade of blonde Harper had. "I'll go rescue him. Then I'll kill him myself."

  


* * *

The clinic was wretched even by clinic standards, dank, filthy, and stinking sourly of illness, urine, blood, and despair. Beka didn't see Harper slumped on any of the waiting room benches, which worried her. The admittance nurse, who wasn't doing anything other than her nails, made Beka stand near the desk muttering and fuming for 20 minutes before deigning to notice her. "Yeah?" the woman finally asked.

"I'm looking for Seamus Harper. I'm his sister Rebecca, and I have the money to take care of him."

Amazing how the word "money" put some life into the nurse. She buzzed the door open, and the sound of explosive, congested coughing could suddenly be heard. Beka hoped that wasn't Harper, but she had a bad feeling that it was. At least now she knew why they'd taken him out of the waiting room, since she wouldn't want to sit near that either. The smell worsened in the hall.

A doctor who looked prematurely aged met her in the hall just as the door slammed shut behind her, making her jump. "I'm glad you're here," he said. "We've been worried about him."

Yeah, so worried they'd refused to treat him. "It took me a while to find him, but I'm here now."

A lump on a dilapidated gurney in the hall ahead shuddered convulsively and coughed. Beka rushed over. Sweating, shaking, Harper had curled into fetal position with his arms clasped tight around his ribs. His breathing sounded thick, clogged, and painful. He'd huddled into his battered jacket. They hadn't even given him a sheet to cover himself with.

"I'm here now, baby brother," Beka said. "Everything's going to be fine."

His eyes looked dazed and hot when he opened them, but he gasped, "I'm so glad you're here, sis." It sounded painful for him to talk, and even his hair didn't have the strength to stand up anymore.

"I'll see him in examination room one," the doctor said.

Beka tried to move the gurney, but it flat out refused, so she helped Harper get down and dragged him in with him leaning on her. He burned against her. How did he get this bad without her seeing it coming?

The doctor asked her a similar question after making Harper take off his jacket, which made Harper shake more. Were the scanners at the clinic so weak that the doctors needed to strip their patients a bit to get a reading? That didn't bode well.

Beka answered immediately, trying to move the examination along so she could leave with Harper and bundle him up comfortably, "He was coughing, but it wasn't anything like this. I figured he'd tell me if it was really bad."

Harper looked embarrassed as he tried to stay sitting up. It seemed to be more than he had the strength for. "Sorry, Beka," he murmured, then coughed convulsively again. "It hurts...." He sounded so young.

It hurt her to watch him. "You know," Beka said, "we left Earth recently. Does that have anything to do with this?"

The doctor sneered and blatantly shuttered his mind a little. "That would explain the lack of documentation and ID, which you should take care of soon if you want to continue living out here. And you two will be facing lots of lovely new illnesses you've never seen before."

The best lies always had the truth in them and let the target assume the rest.

"Great," Harper wheezed, his voice sounding ragged. "My... immune system's been pretty bad since I lived in the refugee camp." He cringed under Beka's glare.

He couldn't let her know about that before? Dammit.

And, poor kid.

The doctor actually, impossibly, became more dismissive. "Not much we can do about that. Nanotech and gene therapy are beyond your means." He didn't want to hear about Earth; it was obvious.

Interesting. Sad and enough to make Beka want to spit nails, but interesting. "Can you help him with what he has right now?" she asked.

"I'll put together the prescriptions outside. It's a good thing for you that your sister showed up. Oh, a Magog... called. Is he with you?"

She didn't think Harper had the time for them to get into this, so she replied, "A Magog? I have no idea what you're talking about."

The doctor sneered at them again, then left the room.

Beka helped Harper back into his jacket. "Sorry about this," Harper murmured.

"I'm not even upset that in the three weeks we've known each other you've never mentioned this immune system thing--"

"It's not something that comes up in casual conversation."

"--but if you get sick again and don't let me know before it gets this out of control I will beat your ass. It's safer for you and cheaper for me to nail this stuff before it gets really bad."

"I, ah." Harper looked down.

"What?"

"I can work, Beka. I'm good."

Oh. Damn. She put her arm around him and pulled him in close to try to transfer some of her warmth to him and stop his shaking. "I won't dump you for having a weak immune system or getting sick. You're a valuable part of my crew. You're--" Family. When had that happened? "--a menace, but I like you and I'd miss you."

"Thanks, boss." His sweaty hair tickled her neck as he snuggled against her. "You know, you look good as a blonde."

"I'll keep that in mind."

 

### End


End file.
